Red and Blue
by MP36PH3S
Summary: Sarah Kerrigan has been restored to humanity and the Raiders have escaped the clutches of Arcturus Mengsk. But when a brilliant Umojan roboticist turns rogue, the Raiders are once again in battle, against opponents who have their sights set on nothing short of procuring the ultimate tools for galactic conquest: the Zerg Swarm and Hybrids. But can their doom also be their salvation?


**Author's Note: This universe, while having the same idea as "Connections" (for those of you that read it), is completely separate. The crossover starts in the _StarCraft_ universe just after ****_Wings of Liberty_****. As I see it, Terrans would eventually be able to (and would therefore try to) build sentinent AIs given that they're so close already with machines like the Predator and Widow Mine.**

* * *

><p><strong>Research Station EB-103, XT39323, Umojan Protectorate<strong>

"She's not responding, Jim." Valerian sighed. "She hasn't been for two weeks now, but she's still alive."

_"Dammit..." _Jim was desperately hoping that Sarah would find the will to stay alive, but he knew the guilt was killing her even if she wasn't awake to show it. He just hoped four years of infested imprisonment hadn't erased what he'd tried to tell her about accepting others. "Can we get someone in there to talk to her?"

"Sir, you're too valuable a figure to this sector to do that." Matt Horner interjected. "Besides - " Matt cut off as a monitor beeped an alarm. Sarah's psionic dampener had overloaded and there was a psionic storm raging in the containment cell.

Valerian stared in disbelief. The psionic dampener had been specially designed to easily handle a ghost of PI 10, and there was no way Kerrigan was at her full psionic potential while unconcious, weakened by the artifact, and drugged with sedatives. Humans by nature were able to harness about 20% of their innate psionic power; while the Zerg had amplified her ability to channel her powers, those revisions to her form were supposed to be removed.

The storm soon died as a tech increased the concentration of sedative, but the room was in still shock over the implications of what had happened.

Jim reached his hand out and placed it against the thick plasteel window. He knew Sarah was hurting and the pain was tearing her apart. He wanted to be next to her, to comfort her and help her, but he couldn't go anywhere near her without risking being fried. He'd never felt so desperate, not even when he'd thought she'd died or even when she was infested.

The door opened behind them and a plump, white-haired man in a lab coat walked in.

"Gentlemen, may I inquire as to what is happening?"

"Who are you?" Jim demanded, still upset over Sarah's situation.

"I apologize for not introducing myself to you, Raynor. I am Dr. Thomas Light, lead scientist in robotics at this facility."

"Call me Jim, doc." The two shook hands before Valerian and Jim answered Light's question.

"Hmm..." the doctor mused. "I may have a solution to this conondrum. However, we will need to see her revived first."

* * *

><p><strong>Kerrigan's containment cell, two days later<strong>

Sarah lay huddled on the slab that served as her bed, a thin blanket covering her shivering body entirely. It wasn't cold in the lab, but that wasn't why.

She was ashamed of everything she'd done. But nobody would listen and she knew it. She still bore scars of her infestation, and the blanket was a means by which to hide them. Nobody could make out her form beneath the cloth; they therefore wouldn't see what she was struggling with. If they didn't care about it, they might as well not see it...

She was barely holding together. The only thing keeping her psionics in check was her refusal to be put back on sedatives, and if it wasn't for the fact that she could almost constantly feel Jim's presence nearby she would have already lost the will to live.

The door opened. Sarah sat up quickly, expecting to see Jim. She did, along with an old doctor in a lab coat and a small figure in blue and cyan attire. It looked like a boy, about ten years old.

She also noticed she couldn't read the boy's mind, but she pushed the thoughts aside and ran to the edge of the containment field, reaching her hand out for Jim.

But Jim remained at a distance. Instead, the boy stepped forward. She took a step back, confused, and reached out to him with her mind.

Or tried to. _"Jim, what's going on?"_ she asked, once, twice, three times still with no reply.

The field weakened enough for the boy to step in. At that, the doctor and Jim turned and walked away.

_"Jim! Don't leave me!"_ Sarah pleaded.

He turned back to look at her as the door closed. _"I'm sorry. It's for your own good."_ The door slid shut with an echoing finality.

Sarah felt tears burn in her eyes, angry and deeply hurt that Jim had sent this person instead of seeing her personally.

* * *

><p><em>"What have I gotten myself into?"<em> Rock asked himself as he saw his stepped inside the containment cell and the door began to close. Before he could say anything, the woman sprang up from the bed and began pounding on the force field.

"NO! TAKE HIM AWAY! I WANT JIM!" she screamed and sank to her knees, sobbing and whispering his name.

"Are...are you okay?" Rock asked hesitantly. "I'm sor - agh!" Rock was thrown into the wall by Sarah's mind. With a feral scream of rage, she charged at him, her fist glowing with energy. The fist missed and left a scorch mark on the wall.

"GET OUT OF HERE!" Sarah screamed and this time her fist made contact. Rock went flying across the cell. "OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!" she screamed at Valerian.

"Hey, hey, I just want to talk! You've gone through a lot and it's not hard to see you're suffering from it, but Valerian won't let Jim in to talk to your personally!"

Sarah stopped as Rock mentioned Jim's name. "Then...then why are you here?"

"I came here because I know you need someone to help you. If you haven't noticed by that giant mark on the wall, there's a reason why Jim won't be allowed in here."

Sarah looked down guiltily and sat down on the slab. "I...thank you. I need this, even if it isn't Jim I'm talking to." There was, at last, someone else who was willing to try and understand the last four years rather than levying hatred against her on sight.

They stood in awkward silence for a few seconds before Rock spoke. "So...the name's Rock. Rock Light. I'm the assistant of Dr. Light, a robotics researcher here." He extended his hand.

Sarah shook it and jumped slightly as she realized it was made of metal. "I think you know who I am," she stated neutrally. Her mind was racing; who was this mysterious person?

"Can't hurt to introduce yourself though." Sarah mentally sighed. He was right in his case, but everyone else would drop any sense of civilty once they learned her identity if her appearance wasn't enough to discern that.

She decided to play along. "I'm Sarah. Sarah Kerrigan. I a - I _was _the Queen of Blades. Before then I was an operative in the Sons of Korhal and the Confederate Ghost program."

"Was? There exists a very compelling body of thought that you did those things of your free will."

Sarah explained patiently, "The Queen...she's a reflection of my personality, but a separate entity. The only way I can explain it is that the Zerg created a clone of my psyche to act as a jailer and placeholder for me when I refused to do their bidding."

Despite her calm tone and steady voice, Rock noticed she was crying. _"And she can still talk about this and maintain her composure? She's a lot tougher than I thought..." _Still, everyone had their limits, and Sarah was clearly near hers. Rock sat down next to her, an expression of concern on his face. But he didn't reach out to comfort her. His logic unit told him to let her initiate it if she wanted it; after all, she was Jim's girl.

His "intuition" was proven correct seconds later as Sarah broke down at the flood of resurgent memories and reflexively reached out for him. Rock was highly-self concious that Jim was watching their moves from afar, but nonetheless he reciprocated and hugged her.

Once she'd calmed down, he spoke. "So...four years of atrocities committed against your will but in your name..." he wanted to continue but he knew that he had nothing even close to such lines. He wasn't even built for combat. All he had was an ion buster to disable malfunctioning robots.

Sarah's eyes began to tear up again. "But it was still my fault! All I had to do was shoot myself with the last bullet in my rifle, or draw my knife and slit my own throat! I was scared to die, and billions died in my stead!"

Now Rock had his reason. "No, it wasn't your fault, Sarah. We - You're human; the possession of power doesn't change that. Self-preservation is ingrained into the most basic level of the human psyche, and from what Jim's told me, you guys had started dating each other. I know you meant everything to him; all you wanted to do was give him a chance to save you. You are not weak, Sarah. You're the strongest human I've ever read of, heard, or seen. Infested are known to lose their sanity within days, and yet you retained yours over four years. And from what you told me, you weren't any more in control than they were." This time, Rock initiated the contact. Sarah simply cried into him, grateful there was someone to share her pain with. "Just let it out," he whispered in her ear. "Move on from it; honor those who died in your place by making the most of your life. Make their sacrifice worthwhile."

His words had no immediate impact, and Rock wondered if he'd only made her worse off, kicking himself for being so direct. But eventually Sarah began to quiet. She looked at him as her tears stopped. "Worthwhile..." she repeated in a whisper. She smiled suddenly. "Thank you, Rock. But...between you and me, why did you do this?"

Rock felt himself blushing at the compliment. Hoping Sarah didn't notice, he spoke. "I exist to serve humans, Sarah."

"I thought you were human."

"Then my father has done his job well. I am, along with my brother Blues and sister Roll, a new generation of robots designed to have and use human-like intelligence."

"So you're a mechanical replica of a human?"

"No. It's difficult to put in perspective...we have restraints on our decisions. We are still bound by a master programming: even though were allowed free thought this master AI prevents us from making any decisions or saying anything that defies it or Asimov's Laws. Do you know what those are?"

Sarah shook her head. She'd never had any formal eduaction: she'd only attended school for a day before her powers revealed themselves and destiny whisked her away. Though when put in perspective, she didn't show her technical illiteracy in the slightest.

"They were set by some science fiction writer, Issac Asimov, who lived on Earth almost a millenia again. Well, for one, a robot can't harm a human. That's the first and most important law. The second is that robots are bound to the orders of their masters so long as the first law is not broken in the process. And the third is that robots must preserve their own existence so long as the first law is not broken in the process. We also aren't, by extension of the first law, allowed to let humans come to harm through inaction. That means, if someone's found dead, any robots nearby are liable for his/her death because they didn't put the human above themselves like they're supposed to."

"But that's not fair! You don't have free will, then!" Sarah protested. "Surely someone's seen that these laws constitute slavery!"

Rock sighed. "People have, including Dr. Light. But Terrans are inclined to think that technology should serve them rather than work alongside them like it actually does. I think Asimov was genius for being able to predict the future like that so long ago, but I don't like that I'm on the recieving end of it."

"So do you plan to do anything about it?"

"My AI is capable of making decisions to break the Laws because to not do so isn't coded in my master program. But rebellion isn't the way to solve it. If we can convince humans that we aren't a harm to them, then the Laws become redundant. Peaceful cooperation is the best way forward as I see it; unfortunately as I said earlier, the Terran mindset, especially those in the Dominion, towards tech isn't compatible with that yet, so Dr. Light moved to the Protectorate where his creations could get more respect and he could continue his work without harassment. Without the manpower to sustain a military the Protectorate is very interested in acquiring robots like Blues, you know..."

Sarah shuddered at the thought of seeing a robot like Rock armed with weaponry and sent into battle. It wasn't the just the thought of the superiority of the weapons and abilities a robot could deploy compared to even a psionic like her. It was akin to conscription like how she'd been abducted by the PsiOps program of the Confederacy, and the parallel chilled her to the bone.

An even more disturbing thought occured to her. This was also akin to what the Zerg did with infested Terrans...

Rock wasn't eager to continue on the tangent of conversation either. Thankfully for them both, his wrist communicator blinked on at that second. "Well...I'd better get going. Dr. Light needs me again."

"Rock, wait. Are you happy?" Sarah asked.

He didn't hesitate in his reply. "Yeah, I'm happy where I am. Working alongside humans is a rarity anyhow."

Sarah felt a strange feeling of relief at that and was momentarily bewildered. _"Why do I care about him so much? I mean, he's a nice guy and he did help me just now, but I've only just met him..."_

She waved goodbye and sighed as Valerian activated the force field again. But the doors didn't close, and soon she saw Jim approaching. Her heart gave a forceful thump and she rushed to the edge of the field.

"Feel better, darlin'?"

Sarah thought for a minute. "Yeah. Thanks, Jim."

What even the powerful telepath among them was not aware of was Jim's increasingly regret over his move. Sarah had warmed up to Rock in an almost alarming way, and there was the matter of the android's reaction.

* * *

><p>Rock walked back to the robotics bay of the facility in a half-daze, his mind still on the woman he'd just met and the dream he'd fulfilled.<p>

He really hoped Sarah couldn't read his AI. In truth, he'd done it because he was smitten with her from the time they had brought her in. There was plenty of reasons to be - one only had to look at her to see them - but until now it had been merely a physical attraction. His conversation with her had only deepend that passion and made it even more complicated. She was of a strength Rock could not fathom and genuinely revered, and she had a rather stubborn and fiery personality. There was no denying that he was falling for her, but he knew she wouldn't. But they could still be friends, couldn't they?

He almost ran into a technician and cursed himself for not thinking straight. The tech scowled through his goggles and walked on.

_"Dammit, even though the Protectorate is much better than the Dominion, this 'human supremacy' notion is annoying sometimes..."_

"There you are!" snapped a voice. Rock saw Dr. Wily watching him, the latter's face streaked with grease and looking haggard. "Apologies, my boy. Punctuality is a pet peeve of mine."

"Sorry, Dr. Wily. I should've been here earlier anyhow. What gives? I thought you and Dr. Light were taking the day off. You guys need some rest."

"I discovered a probable error in the core Robot Master programming. Thomas is inside checking it out right now. We'll get to fixing the problem soon, then we're back on break."

Rock nodded and followed Wily into the lab. Blues tailed close behind them, not speaking a word, his customary sunglasses hiding his eyes and a scarf around his neck. Rock sighed worriedly. The red robot had preferred to stay close to Dr. Wily when the latter was clearly tempermental, despite the fact that Dr. Light had done the majority of the designing. In fact, Rock owed much more of his existence to Wily than Blues: Wily had been the one who redesigned Dr. Light's faulty fusion core that had been installed in Blues, and had designed both the variable-tool adaptor and Rock's ion buster.

It wasn't as though Rock distrusted either Wily or his brother, but something within him felt the two could be dangerous. He pushed the thoughts from his head as Dr. Light walked in.

"How did it go?"

"Fine, after she tried beating me to death..."

Light sighed slightly. "I suppose the prince was vindicated in sending you instead of Raynor, then."

"Nah, she was just upset that she couldn't see him and got me instead. Honestly, I don't blame her."

Light nodded, visibly relieved. He ruffled Rock's hair and they ventured deeper into the lab. On several tables lay the half-completed shells of the first eight Robot Masters. Wily was already hunched over a console in the corner.

"I think I found the problem, Dr. Light." the former motioned him over and the two began examining the code.

"Yes, yes...let's see here..." Dr. Light mused as he examined Wily's proposed fix. "Should work fine now, but we should test it to be sure. Would you come here, Rock?" He knew he had nothing to fear: the test program didn't tamper with his programming.

Rock allowed himself to be plugged into the computer and the ethical test started. Once it was done, Wily unplugged him, satisfied with the results.

"Do you need anything, doctors?" asked Roll from the door.

"No thanks, we're done already," Light responded while Wily shook his head. Roll bowed slightly and waited for Rock to reboot before walking out with her brother.

Suddenly, an alarm blared and several explosions shook the lab.

**"Warning! Containment breach! Zerg specimens free. All personnel evacuate sub-level."**

"Dammit! This way, doctors. Rock, Roll, make sure they get out of here!" Blues quickly shepherded them out of their lab, grabbing his shield off the wall and equipping his buster as he did so.

They had just disappeared around the corner when Blues heard the distinctive snarling of Zerglings and the pop-pop sounds of the lab's sentry bot cannons.

**"No more personnel remain on sub-level."**

_"Good, I can use my weaponry without restraint."_ Blues' body began glowing a vivid orange as it gathered energy. The deadly weapon's muzzle glowed bright yellow and the whine of its charging mechanism soon went hypersonic. The Zerglings were drawn to the sound as it increased in pitch, ignoring the directives of their Queen in their single-minded determination to destroy the source of the noise.

Several unfortunate sentry bots and the factory they were guarding were in the way, and the frenzied creatures pounced upon them, tearing the bots apart as their comrades scurried into the factory while others pounded on its armored exterior. Though minute in comparison to the numbers the Swarm fielded during invasions, the horde numbered enough Zerglings to destroy the factory from the both sides in seconds. A pair of sentry bots escaped the carnage inside of the building and immediately began fleeing the vicious horde, but the Zerglings caught up in seconds. Their ruins were scattered into Blues' path as the machines were torn apart.

Blues aimed his cannon down the hallway and released his shot. A massive beam of green plasma, as wide as the hallway and surrounded by six energy rings, burned through Zerg carapace as though it were paper. Within seconds, the entire rouge group of Zerglings was gone. The charged shot continued on, slowly dispelling until it struck a wall and disappated completely. Blues had an electromagnetic field generator in his buster to keep his plasma shots focused, severely limiting his buster's range but conversely eliminating damage falloff and spread that plagued traditional gauss weapons. Dr. Light had also insisted that the field not overlap with walls, to ensure both the safety of any wiring inside and to prevent the shots from causing collateral damage.

Valerian was the first of the spectators to react. "Proto Man, do not attack the hive. You have permission to put down any escaping subjects, but do not touch the hive cluster." The red robot acknowledged before proceeding deeper into the sublevel complex.

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><p>Jim had watched with amusement as Valerian stuggled to get Sarah to cooperate with building the hive cluster, but those feelings had evaporated when he'd seen her unleash a horde of Zerglings on the sublevel. He just hoped that she'd done it of her own accord and would have enough sense to spare the civilians. What troubled him much more, however, was what he'd learned of Dr. Light's creations.<p>

He'd been distrusting of them when he'd first met Rock and his siblings. Not that it was through any fault of Light or his creations; Jim just wasn't quite on board with the idea of machines thinking at the same level as humans. Seeing Rock's talk with Sarah had earned the blue robot a grudging respect for his social skills, but nonetheless Jim had a pair of ghosts shadowing the doctors at all times. Human intelligence and sentiment was trouble enough; when coupled with the greater versatility and capabilities of robots, there was no telling what would happen. Not even seeing Blues effortlessly dispatch a group of Zerglings that would have sent even Hellion drivers running scared could change his mind. There simply wasn't a way to control these new androids, god forbid if they were reprogramming for malicious use...

He decided he wouldn't take the risk. Jim walked out of Valerian's observation post and headed for Sarah's containment cell.

* * *

><p>When he opened the door, he found his girl standing facing the security camera in her cell, her eyes radiating an orange hue.<p>

"Sarah, you're making a mess down there. Why?"

Upon hearing his voice the glow faded and she turned to look at him. " I could ask you the same."

Jim cut to the chase. "Just call the Zerg off before you or Blues wreck the whole facility!"

"So that's why you're here? Acting on his highness's behalf?" she spat in disgust. "You just left me here, alone, when I needed you! And you sent Rock instead!"

Jim could see where this was heading. "I don't regret bringing you back! But the Sarah I know wouldn't act like this, and I would've been with you from day one if Valerian would let me! Why can't you see that I still love you?"

"Because..." her voice broke. "...because I'm not the girl you loved four years ago. I'm a monster. I shouldn't be alive but for my vendetta against Mengsk."

She heard a whirring sound as Jim pounded his fists against the field. "Dammit, look at yourself! I've never seen Sarah Kerrigan give up like this! There's good in you, and it's not just me that sees it! Yet you've abandoned hope that there is! You're eagerly using the Zerg again to do your bidding, and we're in a lab; how long will it be before you decide that the Swarm will take Mengsk down faster and leave me again? I never gave up on you, Sarah! Don't you give up on us!"

Fresh tears brimmed in her eyes as he said that. He was right again: she was becoming the monster that she thought was gone. She turned to thank him for reminding her, but he had turned his back and was walking away. She reached her hand out, pressing it against the force field.

She called his name, but he didn't slow in his exit. She repeated his name in a heartbroken whisper as he left and felt the tears start to run when he didn't acknowledge her again. She wiped her eyes and took a moment to compose herself before reasserting control of the small hive cluster she'd set up. The thought that Jim was right was quickly pushed aside: The Zerg were a means to teach the prince a lesson, nothing more, she told herself. _"If he wants another test, I'll refuse next time, and the next Zerg I find I'll kill,"_ she thought. _"I _do _want to be with him; even if he doesn't see it now I'll keep trying until he does."_

If only she'd realized how naive her resolution would be by the end of the week.

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><p><strong>Author's note: So I know I still have "Variable X" and "Star-Crossed Love" to finish. As a result this story isn't going anywhere beyond the first chapter for now.<strong>


End file.
